Steel-rail dreams come true for Alberta farmers

A cold, early morning on the Battle River Railway in Forestburg.

Photograph by: Ryan Jackson
, Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal

Take our interactive tour of the Battle River Railway. Sit at the controls of Engine 5353 and learn how to drive a train.

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FORESTBURG -- The sky turns pink as Engine 5353 is roused from its sleep in a shed in Forestburg. Whining and shaking, the locomotive that once hauled passengers across the prairies on Canadian National’s main line creeps forward and out into the icy mist of dawn.

Riding steel nearly sold for scrap, the train rumbles by a towering grain elevator local farmers saved from destruction, and begins a 90-kilometre journey past farms and oilfields and through tiny communities that sprung up when the rail was laid 100 years ago.

“In the early 1900s, communities went where the rail was,” says Ken Eshpeter, chairman and chief executive of the Battle River Railway, the only train in Alberta owned and operated by a farmers’ co-operative. “The train provided everything. Then vehicles came along and everything was ruined.”

Since December of 2010, the farmers have used the former CN branch line to ship grain and fertilizer to CN’s depot in Camrose, and then onward to markets through ports in Prince Rupert and Vancouver.

To boost its revenue, the co-operative also plans to start shipping light sweet crude oil in January and to begin ferrying passengers along a rural tourism corridor between Alliance and Camrose as early as this summer.

“This has the potential to be the greatest thing to happen to this area since 1910,” says Eshpeter, who has grown wheat, canola, barley, flax, fava beans and peas on 2,000 acres in Daysland since 1979. “People are making inquiries from all sorts of places to use the train.

“We bought the line to preserve the infrastructure, but now we realize it has the potential to generate a lot of business and keep money in the communities. Two years ago, we brought in an extra $600,000 that would have otherwise gone to big operators.

“We have been hearing a huge sucking sound for 40 years as money left here. You don’t know how exciting it is to hear that sound start dying.”

A farmer’s son, Eshpeter attended the University of Alberta and worked for Alberta Agriculture at a time “when farmers were treated like people and not numbers.” He also served as a reeve in Flagstaff County when he thought politics had potential, but now, he says, “I am over that.”

Sitting in the cab of Engine 5353, Eshpeter looks out over the barren landscape, at the fields buried in snow, and the hamlets, villages and towns as the train rolls past on a frigid December morning.

“There used to be 25 grain elevators along this line, but now there is only one,” Eshpeter says. “We have witnessed their loss, and the loss of taxation and other revenue streams from our little towns.

“To me, the Battle River Railway provides an opportunity to revitalize this area. We feel it is long overdue, that we live in rural communities and we need to sell what we have out here.

“If we don’t do that, there isn’t going to be a lot left.”

Farmers in east-central Alberta have battled to retain rail service since 2003, when CN initially announced it intended to shut down the branch line. To keep CN from doing so, farmers invoked a provision of the Canada Grains Act and ordered rail cars to ship wheat and other products under the mantle of the Battle River Producer Car Group, a collective with about 180 members.

When CN indicated in 2008 that the line was going to be shut down because the volume was not sufficient, the farmers were disappointed and dismayed. But then they banded together.

In 2009, a group of 151 farmers, 120 regular citizens who like to hear the whistle blow, four towns, three counties, agricultural societies, seed plants and small businesses formed the Battle River Railway New Generation Co-operative.

In a matter of months the group raised $3.5 million by selling shares and borrowed approximately $1.5 million from Alberta’s Agricultural Financial Services Corporation, enough to outbid a U.S. group that planned to rip up the welded steel track — it is smooth so there is no clickety clack — and sell it to recyclers. The co-operative also purchased Engine 5353, which was being decommissioned after more than 20 years of service and was going to be cannibalized or sold as scrap.

“We soul-searched, wondering if there was enough support in the area to buy it, and then held meetings and had incredible uptake from the community,” Eshpeter says. “We had been dissatisfied with CN’s service for a long time, so the decision was really pretty simple. We figured we had already come this far, so we might as well buy the line.”

The co-operative took ownership of the rail on June 18, 2010, and pulled its first train on Dec. 14 that same year. In 2010-2011, the railway shipped 730 cars full of grain, and 780 in the 2011-2012 year ending July 30, such an increase over the traffic that CN handled that it prompted the purchase of a second decommissioned locomotive, Engine 5251.

New, diesel-electric engines cost more than $3 million; the co-op acquired each of its older models for about $100,000 and spent $50,000 having them refurbished.

Operating on the longest stretch of straight track in Alberta, the railway carts as many as 61 cars full of grain and other products to CN’s terminal in Camrose every other week. Each car holds about 3,300 bushels — or 91 metric tonnes — of grain. That same load would fill 122 tractor-trailers.

“When CN announced it was going to discontinue service, people were caught off guard,” Eshpeter says. “They didn’t realize they could do this on their own, but have found it is a learnable skill.

“We are tickled that we can understand this stuff.”

Farmers and members of communities along the route have taken certification courses offered by CN. The railway also performs its own maintenance, mows and sprays foliage along the tracks, and replaced 1,000 planks at crossings last year.

“I heard they were looking for people to take the rules course and got involved,” says Peter Wetmore, who grows grain near Forestburg and fills in as a part-time conductor for the Battle River Railway. “As kids, I think most boys dream of riding a train and blowing the whistle.”

The only short-line railroad in Alberta with regularly scheduled service, Battle River follows a model that has been used by farmers’ co-operatives in Saskatchewan for years.

Cutting a swath across east-central Alberta, the railway serves the communities of Alliance, Galahad, Forestburg, Heisler, Rosalind and Kelsey, and also operates on a short stretch from Kiron to Camrose that is controlled by CN.

Combined, the population of the six communities the railway serves is a little more than 1,600, but the train’s significance cannot be underestimated.

“It is very important to us,” says Muriel Fankanhel, mayor of Alliance, which has 173 residents. “It is vital to keep our small businesses going.”

Born in neighbouring Heisler, Fankanhel rode the rail to doctor appointments in Camrose and to go shopping when she was a kid.

“It is a piece of our heritage and something that may save our communities,” she says.

In Heisler, also home to fewer than 200 people, Ann Wolbeck runs a gift shop and restaurant about 50 metres from the tracks. She is especially excited about the prospect of the train dropping visitors on her doorstep starting this summer.

“It is very important for our village,” Wolbeck says, after preparing sandwiches and broccoli and cheese soup for luncheon guests at Mrs. Pott’s Emporium. “Any new business we get here helps everyone.

“We don’t have the traffic we used to.”

The railway also saves money for farmers who would otherwise have to ship grain by truck to CN’s depot in Camrose, and pay loading fees of nearly $1,000 per car.

“I can load my grain right on the track,” says Don Janzen, who has lived on the same farm in Galahad for 67 of his 70 years. Trains have cut across the corner of his property for nearly a century. “It is much easier for me to go 2 1/2 miles than to hire a trucker to go 20 or 25.

“I can do this myself.”

A member of the co-operative, Janzen grows wheat, canola and peas and has helped by repairing railings on one locomotive, and building a snow plow for the other.

“There are a lot of little miracles with this project,” Eshpeter says.

Engine humming, cars rattling and air brakes whooshing, Engine 5251 rides smoothly along Alberta’s longest stretch of short-line railroad and through communities straight from the pages of history.

Hauling a kilometre’s worth of cars full of grain, more than can be pulled by only one engine, the train rolls past Daysland with its century-old cinema and dozen volunteer projectionists, passes the park in Galahad with a wrought-iron knight at the intersection of Sir Galahad and Lady Guinevere streets, and passes the country store, historic hotel and gift shop and restaurant in Heisler where Wolbeck sells vintage glass Christmas ornaments and has fruitcakes piled atop a table.

Whistle blowing and bell ringing, the train brushes past poplar saplings and willows coated with ice, through frosted fields dotted with pumpjacks and past houses built hard against the rail.

“These guys went and bought themselves a railroad,” Will Munsey says, shaking his head in the cab of Engine 5251, right hand on the throttle. “If things go off the tracks, they get together like a bunch of ants and take care of it.

“It’s a shining example of people remembering who they are. They make these communities.”

A teacher for nearly two decades, Munsey has worked seven years for CN and volunteers to drive for the Battle River Railway in his free time.

“Working on trains is the best job I have ever had,” says Munsey, who lives in the hamlet of New Sarepta. “I just love it.”

Munsey’s father and grandfathers worked for the railroad, and he learned to drive passenger trains sitting on their laps. Now he is doing the same thing they did, hauling freight across the heartland and pumping life into communities that wouldn’t exist without the rail.

“How Canadian can you get?” Munsey asks as he and other members of the crew polish off a pie baked with homegrown berries. “We are pulling a train carrying grain through the prairie, and having Saskatoon pie.

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